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My first experience of Lake Clark National Park & Preserve was a glimpse of a waterfall, falling hundreds of feet from sheer rock cliffs. The clouds parted again, and this time I spotted the jagged, turquoise peaks of a glacier splayed out between mountain peaks like the tongue of some gargantuan ice god.

It took three highway-side moose encounters, but I now play it moderately cool when I spot those antlers lumbering down the shoulder of the road ahead. Or at least I don’t scream as loudly anymore, anyways.

After a whirlwind trip through Arches National Park, it was back to I-70 for the long haul to Grand Canyon National Park. As excited as I was to see the incredible immensity of one of the largest canyons on earth, a few months ago I could only cringe at the thought of the Grand Canyon in June. The thought of the heat and crowds was panic-inducing, especially for someone who prefers her nature with a… Read More

It’s a universally-acknowledged fact that the best way to celebrate finishing four years of flashcards and late night lab reports is to get in your car and drive away from all of your responsibilities for a week. The job apps and life planning will be right there in the anxiety-inducing pile you left them in, but it’s not often that you’ll get to feel as unattached and free as after you finish… Read More

This essay appeared originally on the outdoor media site She-Explores.com. This time last year, I was a few months into my first full-time internship in field that I care about. While I should have felt lucky, all I felt was stuck. I spent most of my free time planning an escape from the routine in which I found myself lodged. I applied to study abroad (for the third time in three years) and… Read More

Staring up at a full sky of stars as the last minutes of 2015 slipped by, I felt nowhere near ready for the new year to arrive. The last year has been challenging and unpredictable, and brought me to the most spectacular places. But, it’s landed me in the new year with hundreds of unedited pictures, two yet-to-be-unpacked suitcases, and a lot to figure out. In the last twelve months, I worked… Read More

After three packed weeks of class and a location change to Punakha (a long 12hr drive away from our home at UWICE), the Bumthang Cultural Trek feels like a lifetime ago. Class and papers and fighting with the wifi has pretty much dominated my free time, meaning that writing blog posts about the things we’ve been up to has been low on the to-do list. But that doesn’t mean we haven’t been… Read More

Sometimes the best travel moments are the ones you never planned for. You can spend weeks researching and making itineraries for a trip only to stumble on an incredible experience by complete chance. I had one of those moments earlier this summer with my family on our way down to southwestern Colorado for a hut to hut trip through the San Juan mountains. We finally had our gear loaded in the back… Read More